


Defying Convention

by scullyseviltwin



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-10
Updated: 2015-04-10
Packaged: 2018-03-22 05:57:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3717691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scullyseviltwin/pseuds/scullyseviltwin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They fell in love ages and ages ago, but they’ve never spoken of it aloud.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Defying Convention

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sher_locked_up](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sher_locked_up/gifts).



> HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALLISON! Here's some schmoop!
> 
> My thanks to [stars-inthe-sky](http://archiveofourown.org/users/stars_inthe_sky) for going over this for me!

The night’s rounded from evening to early morning, and the sweat has long since cooled on their skin.

Sherlock’s index finger traces each individual vertebrae along John’s back, his nail cresting at the apex of the skin-covered bone. John tolerates it for a few long moments, until Sherlock reaches T3, before he mumbles, “It’s rather difficult to sleep with you doing that.”

Fingers pause and Sherlock lingers, nail of his index scratching lightly, back and forth. “You have a beautiful spine,” Sherlock rumbles and then resumes his tracing.

“Mmm, s’a bit creepy,” John turns his head just so, tips his chin towards the ceiling and his head back on the pillow, fully awake now. 

Sherlock doesn’t stop, just hums and keeps going, scraping slowly along John’s warm back. It goes on for a time, John breathing deeply and Sherlock touching him, from coccyx to the base of his skull and back. It’s almost hypnotizing, and in some distant recess of John’s placid mind, he is thrilled and confused as to how Sherlock isn’t bored with this beautiful, languid _nothingness_. 

They’ve not been intimate for long, not sexually. John had waited until the divorce was finalized and Mary was dead in the ground before making a move. Even then, Sherlock had attempted to stop him, assuming he wasn’t ready for such a large change in his life. “I don’t need time to heal,” John had said, his lips ticking against Sherlock’s Adam’s apple. “You’ve healed me a thousand times over.”

Sherlock had pointed out that _John_ was the healer...but there hadn’t been many words after that.

They’re just getting over the nerves, now; it’s their fourth time going to bed together, their fourth time taking the other’s prick in hand and mouth and body, their fourth time breathing into each other’s mouths as they pant out their climax. John is getting used to Sherlock being tactile, but they’d fallen asleep before this moment on the other occasions, the moment when the proper post-coital bliss plies their bodies.

John wants to see Sherlock’s face, see what his eyes look like in the gray light of the room. He wants to tell Sherlock how the skin-on-skin and mouth-on-mouth and whispered pleas make him feel. He wants to say dozens, hundreds, thousands of things, but he’s not certain that his mouth and tongue know how to properly form the words.

They fell in love ages and ages ago, but they’ve never spoken of it aloud. 

It’s funny, this thing they share; John is sure in Sherlock’s love and in his own, but the idea of _saying_ it is inherently terrifying. John has never been a fearful man, but this makes his stomach churn and his body tense. 

He’s said those words _so many_ times in his life. Perhaps that’s it, because this isn’t like any of those other times. This isn’t remotely like anything he’s ever done. Sherlock is nothing like any of those other people. John knows that this time is different, so shouldn’t the _words_ be different? This, here, with Sherlock, is the most positively _certain_ he’s ever been in his entire life, and shouldn’t there be something _more_ for that? More than love and forever?

He ponders the thought as Sherlock shuffles a bit closer and begins drawing abstract figures on his hip beneath the blankets. He presses a gentle kiss to the nape of John’s neck, breath gusting over the hair, and John feels so content that his chest becomes very, very tight. He feels suffocated in the most _brilliant_ way. 

“John,” Sherlock says, his chin tapping against John’s shoulder. He’s holding him _so_ close. 

“Hm?”

“I’m in love with you.” He says it as though he’s pointing out the tea is cold, or that the day happens to be a Tuesday. “I have been for…some time. And I believe that you know but…convention dictates that I say it.”

John’s tongue won’t work; his mouth opens and closes several times before he’s able to say, “ _Convention_ dictates it? Since when…?”

John doesn’t finish and Sherlock waits before speaking. John is sure that Sherlock can feel his heart beating wildly, is sure he’s noticed the minute changes to John’s body that the words have caused, but he says nothing for a minute, then two.

Eventually he speaks, words rushed and quiet and buried in the side of John’s neck. “I don’t want to bugger this up.”

John can’t swallow, and, when he speaks, it’s almost a croak. “Oh god” comes out, painfully, and John turns hastily, getting caught up in the bedclothes but he doesn’t bother to right them.

Sherlock looks surprised and sheepish and a little bit apprehensive, but John just takes Sherlock’s face in his hands and kisses him, hard. It’s closed-mouthed and desperate and when he pulls back, he brings their foreheads together. “No, you don’t need to…no. You don’t,” John says and then presses his lips together, his thoughts all rushing to form coherent speech at once. 

“You can’t,” he says, finally. “You won’t. Yeah we’ll fight and get properly angry at one another, we might…might spend the night away from one another even when we really piss one another off but. You’re not going to bugger it all up, and neither am I. You’re it for me, Sherlock. You are absolutely _it_.”

Even that feels clunky and wrong, miniscule in the grand scheme. Not enough, not nearly getting at the whole truth of it. But Sherlock just blinks back and releases a long gust of breath, pinches John in the hip and then smiles, nods once. 

It had never occurred to him that _Sherlock_ might be the one who needs to hear it be said. Sherlock, who is always so sure of himself, of everything, is unsure about this. John’s ribs constrict, and he feels as though his heart is expanding to fit his chest cavity; he presses his lips to Sherlock’s forehead and pulls him into a tight embrace. 

“I’ll say it every fucking day, if that’s what you need,” it’s a promise, half-growled into Sherlock’s hairline. “Every fucking day, how much I love you. _Need_ you. Christ. Like, like bloody…like bloody air, water, that’s how I need you, Sherlock.”

Sherlock chuckles, but there’s a hitch to it. “Cliché.”

“Shut the bloody hell up,” John pulls back and grins, presses him down onto his back and settles atop him. “I’m trying to be romantic, here. _Conventionally_ , properly romantic.”

Sherlock tries to grimace and frown, but he can’t quite wipe the smile from his face. “This is awful. You are _terrible_.”

John smiles fondly, and his cheeks glow with the warmth of it. “Yeah, so what if I am? You _love_ me.”

Sherlock turns the tables, shoves him off and and onto his back; Sherlock covers John with his body, his belly to John’s thighs. His chin rests right atop John’s sternum when he sighs and says, “Helplessly, hopelessly, like a tragic heroine in a classic novel.”

Sherlock is tousled and looks radiant and in awe as he stares up and John, and John can’t find the words. So John says nothing, simply cards his fingers through Sherlock’s hair and looks his fill.


End file.
